Date   : Thu, 11 Oct 1990 20:15:15 GMT
From   : dino!news.iastate.edu!hobbes.cc.iastate.edu!spam@uunet.uu.net (Begley Michael L)
Subject: Need info for an S-100 bus system

Hi...Yesterday I bought an S-100 bus system that the University was selling
off.  It works, but I have absolutely no software or information on it.
The case has no manufactures' name on it, but inside are 4 boards:

1:  the CPU board.  MFD by Jade computer systems. (C) 1979 Compu/time
    there's a Z-80 CPU, support hardware, a ROM (boot ROM perhaps),
    and a USART for hooking to a serial terminal.

2:  The floppy controller. 8800 Interface Board by ICOM.  Is this just a
    floppy controller or is it a SASI controller?  there's a 2x25 pin
    male connector.

3:  Vandenburg Data Products 16K Static Memory Board (rev B)
    This has 4 banks of 8 NEC M79729-738 memory chips.

4:  Finally, one unlabeled board.  I'm almost certain that this is a
    memory board.  There are 16 x4 mitsubishi M5L2114LP chips on it but
    I didn't have a source book to make certain these were memory chips.

Connected to the 8800 Interface board are the floppy drives.  These are
2 pertec 8" floppies Model # FD511 in a case made by ICOM Microperipherals.

That's about all I know right now about the hardware.  I hooked a terminal
up to the USART port on the CPU and flipped it on and got on the screen
Z-80 MONITOR
?
and just about any command or random string of 2 characters gives me an
INVALID COMMAND SYNTAX error.  The one command that did something different
was RT which returned (* damn!  I can't remember what it returned, but it was
different *).  Otherwise the machine just sits there...

The floppies seem to work, except that I haven't done more than turn them on.

All right, after all that, tell me, what the heck have I got?  (* no flames *)
Can anybody out there help me with this beast?  I'd like to really do some
serious playing with this machine, but I've got no manuals, no boot disk,
no OS, and no clue...

Also, I'd like to expand this thing, too.  does anyone out there have any
S-100 equipment they're not using and would like to donate to a worthy cause
(me)?  I'm looking for anything; a Cromemco Dazzler would be neat, or perhaps
a better CPU board (6809?  68000?), or maybe even an OS (CP/M?  MINIX?  UNIX?)
If you have anything you think I may be interested in getting or even paying
a small amount for (and you'd be amazed at what I can be interested in) send
me mail...


Thanks a pile,
-mike begley
spam@iastate.edu